In the Midst of Abundance
A new book on the Coptic Orthodox practices of Lent sheds light on the deep hunger we all feel—even when we are surrounded by good things.
Review by Bree Snow
I’m so hungry. It’s 3:00 in the afternoon. My husband is traveling for work and my two kids have spent the last two days binging on Costco snack packs. If I know them (and I do), they’ll request PB&J for dinner again, and I’ll dutifully spread each slice of wheat bread with creamy Jif, because I’m a choosy mom. Don’t get me wrong, I love a PB&J. But I need something more substantial, something that’ll stick to my bones in these waning days of winter. I’ve eaten, the cupboard is full, but I’m hungry.
To that, Phoebe Farag Mikhail might ask, “But what are you hungry for?” Are you hungry to see the world made right and the mighty toppled from their thrones? Are you hungry to feel secure and known in meaningful relationships? Are you just plain hungry for something that doesn’t come in a Kirkland-brand aluminum pouch? Well, Mikhail says, welcome to Lent.
I don’t think I’m the only Christian for whom the beginning of Lent comes with a surge of anxiety. My theology knows better, but my people-and-God-pleasing heart thinks it can win at Lent by giving up whatever it is I’m lusting after these days: social media, chocolate, Netflix. I’m not saying this sort of fast isn’t useful; no, there’s almost nothing I need more than a Church-sanctioned break from doom-scrolling. But if that’s all there is to it, Lent is just an opportunity to reinvigorate the New Year’s resolutions we collectively abandoned, I don’t know, somewhere around January 20th. I don’t need another fad diet or forty-day challenge. I need something more substantial—something that will stick to my bones.
In her book Hunger for Righteousness: A Lenten Journey Towards Intimacy with God and Loving our Neighbor, Mikhail introduces her reader to the ancient rhythms of Lent as they are practiced in Coptic Orthodoxy. But despite the sometimes eye-crossing specificities of Mikhail’s tradition, she is not siloed in a spiritual niche. She knows good and well that Lent is, for most western Christians, an individualistic enterprise that grants theological license for self-righteousness on one extreme and self-hatred on the other. If I win at Lent, for instance, I wait expectantly for my divinely issued gold star. But if I lose, I enter Eastertide with a guilt hangover after forty days of sheepishly hitting “ignore” on my self-imposed time limit on Instagram.
In Lent, we hunger and thirst for righteousness as evidence that God really has purified this sin-sick world with his grace.
This, Mikhail says, is not the purpose of Great Lent. She writes: “In my church, we all ‘give up’ the same things during Lent. We fast Lent as a community, and we call it Great Lent because it is the longest and most important one of many ‘lents’ or fasts we practice all year.” Far from a “live your best Lent now” set of spiritual prescriptions, Hunger for Righteousness is an invitation to experience our lack, sin, and hunger as signposts on a pilgrimage to the very heart of God. In Lent, we hunger and thirst for righteousness as evidence that God really has purified this sin-sick world with his grace. Mikhail has curated an all-star guest list for our journey, surrounding us with biblical saints we know and love, biblical saints we’ve sort of forgotten, and spiritual Fathers and Mothers we’ve likely never heard of. Hunger for Righteousness offers to its readers a flight from individualism, sitting us squarely where God intended us to live our lives on this beautiful and painful side of eternity: with each other.
Consider, for instance, St. Abraam of Fayoum, an Egyptian monk who nearly bled his monastery dry by giving to the poor. One afternoon, the monastery cook, who “swore on his eyes” that he did not discriminate between social classes, was caught serving cold, meatless dishes to the poor. St. Abraam reprimands and dismisses the man, who then inexplicably goes blind. Coincidence? Probably not. Or what about St. Paësia, the orphan who gifted her inheritance to the monks of Scetis? When her coffers ran dry, she was forced into sex slavery to pay off her debts. When she is delivered from the hellscape of prostitution by one of her former beneficiaries, she peacefully dies, and her body is borne away by the very angels of God.
Like St. Abraam, I am a priest. Like St. Paësia, I am a woman. But I can’t help but think the comparisons stop there. I haven’t tried, but I sincerely doubt my ability to strike a man blind due to his transgressions. I am moved by St. Paësia’s steadfastness in suffering, but I struggle to forgive the monks who allowed her to reach such destitution. I want to be righteous, sure, but if this is what righteousness looks like, I’m not sure I want it.
Thankfully, Mikhail invites much more relatable companions on our journey: Abraham, who goes on a Rambo-esque mission to save his nephew and tearfully intercedes for the wicked city of Sodom, but who also hands his wife over possibly to be raped by Pharaoh. Then there’s Jonah, who God preserved for three days in the belly of a fish to be a prophet to the evil Ninevites. When they repent—all 120,000 of them! —he becomes so angry he lies down and asks God to let him die.
In the wilderness of Lent, Jesus has set a table before us. He has filled the bread baskets. He has poured the wine.
Walking contradictions like Abraham and Jonah populate the pages of Scripture, and God unfathomably seems to delight in them all. Abraham becomes the patriarch of humankind, serving as the one through whom “all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen. 12:3b). Jonah is cited by Christ himself as a foreshadowing of his death and resurrection, which ultimately saves all of Abraham’s children who repent. Righteousness, it seems, is not something that comes from the inside. It doesn’t arise from the right observance of Lent or any other fast, and it doesn’t only abide in those whose behavior seems to prove its presence. Our hunger and thirst cannot be satisfied by right thinking or right living or right Lent-ing. Mikhail puts it perfectly: “The only righteous person… is Christ Jesus himself, the Sun of Righteousness. When we hunger and thirst for righteousness, we hunger and thirst for Christ, and when he satisfies us, he satisfies us with himself.”
In the wilderness of Lent, Jesus has set a table before us. He has filled the bread baskets. He has poured the wine. And we are not alone at his table. Through empathetic storytelling, Phoebe Farag Mikhail has filled the seats around us with God’s people who have been hungry for a long, long time. And as we wait to be fed by Righteousness Himself, we learn from our brothers and sisters who join us in the waiting. We dine with Adam and Eve and feel their hunger for communion with God, so we pause our Hinge profiles and abstain from Instagram as a tacit confession that earthly connection is simply not enough. We pass the salt to Jonah and because we can all relate to his salty cynicism, we set aside our doomscrolling and accept that justice unfolds even when we aren’t functioning as its arbiters. We brush elbows with St. Abraam and long with him to see the poor satisfied, so we allow our privileged bellies to experience temporary emptiness, and nourishment comes to us like grace instead of prerogative. We observe the Great Fast of Lent so that when the Great Feast begins on Easter morning, we know precisely what it is we have been so hungry for.
So enough with the PB&J already. Down with the Costco snack pack. Stop pretending that carbs aren’t delicious or that you should (or even can) will yourself to resist an aged Bordeaux. While we wait for the Sun of Righteousness to rise on Easter morning, let’s at least be honest about our hunger.
Come, Lord Jesus. We are so hungry.
Bree Snow is an Anglican priest serving at Church of the Apostles in Charlotte, NC. She earned her Master of Divinity at Phoenix Seminary in 2022, and her writing has been published in the Journal of the Evangelical Homiletics Society. She and her husband enjoy reading good books as their small children systematically destroy their home.
Hunger for Righteousness: A Lenten Journey Towards Intimacy with God and Loving Our Neighbor was published by Paraclete Press on January 7, 2025. Fare Forward appreciates their provision of a review copy. You can purchase your own copy from the publisher here.
